Sweet Equivalence

Barbara Dougan's eight sugar cube sculptures were made for the film 'Sweet Equivalence' vimeo.com/447787836, and have been placed outside eight takeaways and cafes in the centre of Bury St Edmunds. The responses are by Tim Welton and Phil Barrett. 

The Animus Came in Three by Four

Instantly animate, endlessly shimmering, 
Sugarcube regiment
Constantly re-arrange
Using Blighty’s distant empire’s number system. 
Once dull as earth now leached pure white they drill on pink 
Exercising
Military
Accuracy
Indefatigably
Circumnavigating
Logical
Manouevre
Nonetheless
Heralding
Albion’s afternoon prandial pleasantry.
Tinkling
China
Echoes.
Teatime’s
Acting
Bugle

Tim Welton

Equivalence
 
Long after the Cubists
had demolished the world
Carl Andre set about
rebuilding it –
brick by brick.
 
Simple as a
tea-time challenge 
using sugar lumps,
 
taking
the same number 
of identical units
(lumps or cubes),
and piling them
in different symmetrical 
configurations or stacks.
 
How many different 
arrangements 
can you make,
with the same number 
of bricks or cubes,
forming perfect ‘Equivalents’?
 
Or as Marcel Duchamp put it
in 1921:
‘Why not Sneeze Rose Sélavy?’ – *
 
neither he nor Carl Andre
sweetening the taste
for modern art.

Phil Barrett

* Why not Sneeze Rose Sélavy? is an 'assisted Readymade', of 1921 by Marcel Duchamp. The birdcage has been 'assisted' by the addition of the other objects – including 152 white cubes (made of marble, but resembling sugar cubes).

Barbara Dougan is an artist working mainly with film, a curator (grove, groving) and visual arts consultant.
Twitter @barbara_atgrove Instagram @barbara_at_grove Facebook barbaraaatgrove https://barbaradougan.com http://www.groveprojects.org www.groveprojects.org

Tim Welton is a theatre practitioner who, as an actor and director has worked on numerous productions including Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Royal National Theatre) London Road (Royal National Theatre) Dancing at Lughnasa (Garrick Theatre) and Cabaret (Lyric and Savoy Theatre and National Tours). He has written for theatre (Carnival UK) and online digital media (BBC Radio Jam), and a new musical commission with Three Pin Productions, the brainchild of West End Performer Ruthie Henshall and Musical Director Paul Schofield. Twitter @timwelton  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tim-welton-3711742b

Originally trained as a visual artist, Phil Barrett has won prizes and commendations in a number of national competitions; has read, and led creative writing workshops, for adults and children, in 35 schools and 10 libraries. In 2017, 2019 & 2020 he has had poems selected for Poems in the Waiting Room.  He is a professional member of NAWE.